WESTLOCK — The wellness rooms at R.F. Staples School, a project spearheaded by five Class of 1979 alumni, are complete and ready for school re-opening.
“This year more than ever the students will return under more anxiety-provoking times than before. They will need these spaces more than before. This room will provide those multi-spaces for the students to self-distance yet provide the therapeutic responses we wanted,” said Donnel Wingrove, one of the alumna who organized the project.
After a donation campaign that ran through the winter, the group raised almost $45,000 from the community to upgrade two spaces in the school. They’re meant to offer students a chance to pause, spend some time alone if they need to, or with friends if they want to.
The group’s intent was to make a contribution to the school that would improve mental health outreach.
She and Holly Ohri (“my instrumental partner,” Wingrove wrote), both of whom live in Ontario, were at the high school Aug. 20, setting up the rooms.
“Our goal for the Quiet Room was to provide a calm, tranquil space for students to come and get away from the mainstream student population to regroup, to calm their anxieties, to find a place of solace to refocus, maybe write a test in quiet space, to eat a snack, meditate or just wait for an appointment for the counselors,” said Wingrove.
“I think we achieved this.”
They had been painted, they cleaned the floors, and the two women—with some help—set up the furniture, the plants, and organized the spaces. The Quiet Room is also officially named the Wabash Wellness Room.
In December 2019, Wabash Manufacturing matched donations to the project dollar for dollar and brought the total raised to $27,000, up from $4,000.
So some can recollect in the blue room — which also has a nature mural on one of the walls—if they need to. In the second space, Wingrove and Ohri said they wanted something different: “cheerful, happy, loud,” wrote Wingrove.
That’s a space to meet, hang out, eat. The furniture is red, and as it stands, there’s a blank off-white wall that will hopefully be turned into mural made by the students.
COVID-19 is — and will be for a long time — a worry for the schools. But Wingrove says the furniture—some of which is yet to arrive for the second room—is easy to clean and sanitize. Plus, the kids can move the bean bag chairs around all they want and keep socially distant.
The five women — Wingrove, Ohri, Kathy Keiser, Carol Schlachter and Laval Malish — started with the idea of doing something at RFS that would aid students with their mental health and wellbeing. They had conversations with the school and settled on redoing two of the spaces.
The Pembina Hills School Division contributed, so did the Rotary Club, the Westlock Elks and the local 4-H club.
That’s not including the local businesses, families and individuals who made donations for the grassroots project. Wingrove has a very long list of people, from school maintenance, builders, businesses.
“We had huge community support,” said Wingrove.
Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @andreea_res
